


Playing Hide and Seek Alone

by CryBabyPorcelain



Series: FFXV Halloween Event 2017 [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-21 00:39:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13729431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryBabyPorcelain/pseuds/CryBabyPorcelain
Summary: My third entry for the 2017 Halloween Event, based on the ritual pasta, One-Man Hide and Seek by Saya.





	Playing Hide and Seek Alone

People think they know every daemon in existence. Iris thinks she knows a little more. She’s never told anyone, but she believes she encountered a previously unknown daemon when she was just twelve years old.

She was home by herself after school and would be overnight, not really a rare occurrence, her mind replying the silly stories that were being passed around the classroom.

Ghosts wandered a middle world—or, so said the girls in her class—somewhere between life and death, searching for a body to possess. If one were to give them a body, a doll, then a game could be played. That’s all it was. A ghost story. Something she would typically dismiss.

Something she  _should have dismissed._

Yet, she found herself stood in her bathroom in the early hours of the morning, sewing up a rag doll from her childhood, filled with rice and fingernail clippings, with crimson thread. She wrapped the thread tightly around the doll and tied it.

She glanced at her watch for a quick time check. Almost 3 AM. Almost go time.

She turned the doll over in her hands. The doll was pretty, with black wool hair and big button eyes, but she’d never been particularly attached to it. She’d named it Alyssa, and it had sat on a shelf for seven years.

Her watch beeped. It was time.

She stared at the doll, taking a deep breath. “Iris is the first ‘ _it,_ ’” she whispered. “Iris is the first ‘ _it,_ ’ Iris is the first ‘ _it_.’” She dropped the doll,  _Alyssa,_  into the water-filled bathtub and left the bathroom, turning out the light.

She hurried to her room, turning her TV to static and tucking herself away into her closet. She pulled her knees up to her chest, closed her eyes, and began to count.

One.

Two.

Three.

Why was she doing this?

Four.

Five.

Six.

She knew nothing was going to happen. She was a rational person, she didn’t believe in ghosts or possession, so why?

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

But what was the harm? It  _is_  just a game and she  _knew_  nothing was going to happen.

Ten.

Iris pushed open the doors of her closet and crawled out. She dug around in her vanity drawer for a pair of scissors and made her way back to her bathroom.

She grabbed the soggy doll out of the bath. “I found you, Alyssa,” she said. She drove the scissors into the doll, cutting the thread. “You’re the next ‘ _it_.’” She dropped the doll and fled back to her bedroom, ducking into the closet.

She reached for the half glass of salt water she’d tucked away in the corner of the closet and poured half of it into her mouth. The taste made her want to vomit, but she held it in her mouth.

She crawled back out of her hiding spot, carrying the glass with her and made her way back to the bathroom.

The doll was sprawled out on the floor in a puddle.

Iris spat the water in her mouth into the bath, coughing and spluttering, and dumped the rest of the salt water over the doll. “I win, Alyssa.” she panted, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

She spent a few moments gathering herself. She wasn’t sure why her heart rate was so high, or why her hands were shaking. She stared down at the sodden doll, rice spilling from it’s stab wound, and let out a heavy breath.

Nothing happened. Just like she knew it would. The doll did not move. She was never even the least bit scared. All she’d done is waste time and make a mess.

With a groan, Iris picked herself up off the bathroom floor. She grabbed the doll and deposited it on the radiator to dry it out. She’d burn it in the morning.

She let the water out of the tub, draped a towel over the puddle and went to bed.

Nothing seemed amiss. And of course, nothing was.

It was just, a few weeks later—and she was probably just hearing things—but she could swear, on her way to school, she could hear someone behind her whispering.

“I found you, Iris. You are the next ‘ _it._ ’”

She was sure it was nothing, though, just her imagination. I mean, she did all the steps right.

Didn’t she?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm importing my entries from the 2017 Halloween event from Tumblr.  
> Find my FFXV blog at chocobabyporcelain.tumblr.com


End file.
